Friday, January 25, 2008

DC Mayor Wants Redskins Back

Washington DC mayor Adrian Fenty wants the Washington Redskins to return to the nation's capital. Currently the Redskins play at the 11 year old Fed Ex Field, which is in Landover, Maryland. Former Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke built the stadium with his own money on land given to him by Maryland officials. At the time, Washington DC did not want to give land to the Redskins to build their own stadium. Times have now changed.

Adrian Fenty said on Wednesday that he is going to present a proposal to Redskins owner Dan Snyder for a possible a 100,000-seat domed stadium that also could be used for Super Bowls and other major events. DC's Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi has gotten involved and will do a financial analysis of the impact that building this stadium and the return of the Redskins to town will have on the city.

To this, I have two things to say 1) It better not cost the tax payers much if anything like the National's stadium and 2) THANK GOD! Going to FedEx Field is a miserable experience. There is no good way of getting there. If you drive, you're stuck in traffic, if you metro, you have to take it all the way out to Maryland, then choose to either walk a mile and a half or take a shuttlebus that may or may not leave you once the game is over, causing a crazed mad scramble to find your bus (an adventure unto itself) and get on it before it leaves you.

Once you're there, the stadium itself has as much character as an office building. There is nothing good to see when walking up to the stadium or when you are in your seat sitting down. If you're unfortunate enough to sit up in the "nose bleed" seats, you could actually get a nose bleed. You are eye level with helicopters that fly around the stadium and I have seen several cases of vertigo bring people down once getting up there.

I hate FedEx field and would love to see the Redskins back where they belong, in Washington DC. If these guys can figure out a way to do this that is beneficial to the city, its citizens and the Redskins organization (tall order I know) this might be one of the few bits of good news out of this team since the Dan took over.